Paul Lawrie admits he has a fight on his hands if he wants to preserve a 20 year unbroken run of appearances in the Open Championship.
While David Dixon claimed the ultimate honours in the Aberdeen Standard Investments Scottish Par 3 Championship at Lawrie’s own golf centre in Aberdeen yesterday, the man himself admitted that a return to Carnoustie next month, where he famously won the Claret Jug in 1999, is under serious threat due to his long-standing foot injury.
Lawrie, who has played in every Open since 1998 and has missed only one since a debut in 1992, had entered next week’s Scottish Hydro Challenge on the second-tier Challenge Tour in an effort to bolster his fitness under tournament conditions. However, just as event promoters cheerily sent out a press release championing the news of the 49-year-old’s appearance in Aviemore, Lawrie had to inform officials of his withdrawal after hirpling his way to a painful five-over 59 on the final day of the par-3 contest.
With a rigorous run of links tests coming up on the main circuit – the Irish Open and the Scottish Open lead into the Open itself – a concerned Lawrie, who also has a niggling back problem, is well aware that his hopes of appearing in the major which has defined his career are hanging in the balance.
“Right now, I’ve honestly got no idea,” he said when asked about his prospects of being fit for the Open. “I’ve been pulling out of events week by week and hoping it would get better but that doesn’t seem to be happening unfortunately. I played here with next week in mind but there’s no way I can compete and I don’t want to take a place away from someone else who may have a chance of kicking on.
“I have entered the Irish Open, the Scottish Open and the Open but I’m not sure. Getting fit for the Open would be the goal but we’ll have to see how it goes.
“Some days I feel fine but there’s no way of knowing when it’s coming. These guys (on tour) are too good when you are fit so there’s no way I can compete when I’m not fit. And I’m certainly not fit at the minute.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here